


The Florence Nightingale Effect

by FishPrincess



Series: HSWC 2014 Bonus Round 4 [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Humanstuck, Loss of Limbs, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2613644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FishPrincess/pseuds/FishPrincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Feferi is a war-side medic and falls head over heels for one particular injured soldier. For HSWC Bonus Round 4. A response to a prompt by Dreamwidth user mangoeclipse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Florence Nightingale Effect

She knows she is way in over her head the moment she steps foot in the tent.

There are beds, many close to each other, with no curtains allowing for any form of privacy. There’s no space, no room – only little tables set aside each cot. Some of the men are crying, the smell of blood thick in the air, and she’s never smelled anything this awful before. She signed up to help because she considered herself both a privileged and compassionate person, and she overestimated her ability to truly handle what she would see.

Had she known it would be the scene before her, she would have reconsidered.

Now, there’s no turning back, and they have her sleep and eat and prepare food with the others, the nurses much less fortunate than she. She accustoms herself to the tents where the gnats fly in and chew bug bites on her skin. She finds it hard to sleep in the humidity of the night that causes her to wake up with sweat on her brow and tired eyes. She has received minimum training prepared specially for volunteers, and she feels overheated in the long dress she wears for modesty.

But as she looks into this room, she is told to pick a man and assist him in any way possible. Feed him, clean his wounds, and neutralize the pain if possible. And at first, she doesn’t know who to choose. Is it wrong to go for the man who looks the least injured? She feels overwhelmed when she looks at another who is sobbing and blubbering incoherent sentences. Taking a deep breath, she picks a number in her head, and counts down the beds until she finds her feet shakily moving toward the cot number 9.

Lying wrapped in bandages and changed into a gown is a tall, muscular man with dark hair that falls to his shoulders. It looks greasy in this lighting, but hair care is not a priority here, nor should it be so. She stops at the foot of his bed, forcing on a smile that feels so natural to her despite the circumstances. He is wounded, and she can see the blood staining his bandages. She’ll need to change those.

“Hello, my name is Feferi! I’ll be assisting you!” Her voice comes out as it normally does, but it seems far too chipper for the grimness of the surrounding area.

The name on the table beside him reads “Equius Zahhak.” A clipboard lies just on it, explaining his bullet wounds. As she looks down his body, she notices that his right leg is missing. Amputated. His breathing is heavy, and he requires surgery. He has to wait his turn with the few surgeons they have on site.

He turns his head weakly toward her, and he noticeably stiffens.  
“I…thank you,” he says, his voice deep. “My name is Equius.”

“Your bandages need to be changed,” she says as perky as possible, grabbing the supplies from a bin by the table and working to undo his old ones.

“Is that an order?”

Although he appears completely serious, she finds herself giggling at what she finds to be a joke. He does not return her smile, but she instead finds a way to carry on the conversation between the two of them as she helps him out. He comes from a well-off farm family, and he was raised among plenty of horses. She finds out that he loves archery but is not so good at it. Feferi insists that he show her when he gets better, but he thinks he will look even more of a fool when he comes home without a leg.

If he comes home.

The next day, she is given the option to move about the room, because with the low amount of staff they have at the tent, they need to be as efficient as possible. Feferi finds herself glued to Equius’s side, telling him all about her life back home, how she was raised wealthy with an absolutely power-hungry mother. While her father plays strong roles in politics, her mother remains a gossip-fueled social deviant. Equius tells her that her life intimidates him, that she seems out of his league completely.

For a week, Feferi attends to him. She serves and feeds him his meals, changes his bandages and supplies him with medication to dull the pain. When she retires to her bed at night, he is all she can think about. The rare occasion in which he smiles makes her heart melt. She hears his voice when she’s about to fall asleep, and she finds her soul tied with his in regards to his well-being. She roots for his recovery with everything she has, and she begins to believe that coming out here is the best decision that she has ever made.

At the end of the week, he is up for surgery, and Feferi grows worried for the procedure. She has heard of plenty of men dying during the operation, and she wants to make sure that he is as safe as possible. The doctor operating doesn’t spare her any extra details, and she bothers him for a concrete answer. There is none. Anything past this point is a complete risk, and his multiple bullet wounds have caused irregularities in his body.

She makes sure to be there when they send him in, and just before they make her leave, she plants a kiss on his perspiring forehead, his eyes heavy and tired as they look up onto hers.

“I’ll see you after,” she says, donning a confident smile.

Those are the last words she speaks to him. She spends the night crying, her heart heavy and broken in a way that she never imagined possible. But she continues still in her duty, attending to the men injured in combat and bringing a bright smile along with her. None of them are able to fill the hole in her heart that he once occupied, but it is with newfound strength that she is able to see many of her patients survive.


End file.
